-By LeN Political Correspondent
(Lanka-e-News -27.May.2025, 12.10 PM) It began, as these things often do, with a whisper. A tip-off, an envelope, a hushed phone call, a reluctant confession in the back room of a smoky teashop in Borella. But on Friday, the whisper roared into a well-timed storm, as the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery and Corruption (CIABOC)—Sri Lanka’s embattled but now suddenly energised anti-graft body—raided the Department of Motor Traffic, a temple of chaos and lubricated palms that has long operated as the Vatican of vehicular vice.
In the resulting sweep, CIABOC officials nabbed three government servants, including a deputy commissioner, along with a suspiciously warm Rs. 4.1 million in unexplained cash. The bills, one presumes, were still perspiring.
But the real fireworks came later, not from the raid itself, but from its aftermath, as CIABOC Director General Ranga Dissanayake, a man with the calm of a schoolteacher and the stare of a federal prosecutor, delivered what is perhaps the most direct, shaming, and legally invigorating sermon the Sri Lankan bureaucracy has heard since independence—or at least since the last time someone had the temerity to audit a public toilet construction project.
“This is not just about punishing them,” Dissanayake intoned in a recorded video message now bouncing across social media with the velocity of an IPL highlights reel. “We are naming names. These officials have families. Children. Parents. Let them feel the weight of societal shame.” The implication was clear: corruption is not a private vice anymore—it is a public spectacle, and CIABOC plans to make it theatre.
The Department of Motor Traffic, for the uninitiated, has long been a Kafkaesque maze of forms, files, and fervent facilitators. For decades, tales of a mysterious “express lane” accessed only by folded notes and furtive glances have been told with folkloric nostalgia.
So when CIABOC’s officers descended upon its Colombo headquarters in full official regalia—flashing warrants, shaking down desks, lifting ledgers, and probably disappointing a few bribe-pending licence applicants in the queue—it was the anti-corruption equivalent of raiding Gringotts Bank.
Of course, this wasn’t a one-off. DG Dissanayake made it clear: “We had prior information that corruption in government institutions is happening in a coordinated way… the bribe money is divided among them.” Think Ocean’s Eleven, but with worse tailoring and slightly less sophistication.
And herein lies the catch. Everyone, including CIABOC, knows corruption is systemic. It’s not the lone, rogue official with a taste for illicit income. It’s a symphony orchestra, and someone’s been collecting tickets for years.
CIABOC’s latest raid, while dramatic, is part of a larger effort to salvage what remains of public faith in the National People’s Power (NPP) government’s war on corruption. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, a man known for his firebrand speeches and low tolerance for champagne socialism, came to power vowing to scrub the public sector clean.
And to be fair, ministers and deputy ministers—the traditional strongholds of Ferragamo-fuelled fraud—have largely been forced to rein in their champagne tastes and orange Lamborghini dreams. But at the lower levels? The rats remain, and they’re nibbling at the nation’s moral cheese.
“People tell us corruption is still the same,” admits one CIABOC official off the record. “Except now it’s decentralised. Before, it was concentrated in the ministerial penthouses. Now, it’s local. It’s bureaucratic. It’s banal.”
This is, in many ways, more dangerous. The public can spot a Ferrari-driving minister. But a low-level clerk siphoning Rs. 500 from a licence application every day is like a slow leak in a submarine—it won’t sink instantly, but eventually, everyone drowns.
If Dissanayake’s message had a tone, it was part Old Testament, part HR induction video, and part mafia confession tape. “Think about your children. Think about how you’ll face society,” he warned, weaponising familial guilt like a seasoned aunt at a Sri Lankan wedding.
But the legal undertones were unmistakable. CIABOC, under Dissanayake’s stewardship, is not merely interested in punishment—it wants deterrence. Naming and shaming is not vengeance. It is strategy.
This marks a bold shift from the old CIABOC playbook, where cases went to court with the velocity of a tortoise on sedatives and ended—after decades of legal inertia—with either a plea bargain or an “honourable acquittal” owing to “insufficient evidence,” i.e., the evidence having mysteriously caught fire or gone on a long sabbatical.
This time, the message is: You will be exposed. You will be prosecuted. And we might just livestream it for good measure.
Of course, not everyone is thrilled. Some civil servants, who spoke to this columnist on condition of anonymity and between nervous glances, warned of “witch hunts” and “trial by media.” One lamented, “It’s like CIABOC wants to hang people first and ask questions later.”
To which a legal observer dryly retorted: “They’ve had 75 years to ask questions. Hanging might be more efficient.”
More concerning is the possibility of political retribution cloaked in virtue. If CIABOC, even unintentionally, becomes a tool to discipline bureaucrats who aren’t sufficiently deferential to the new regime, the credibility of its crusade will collapse faster than a Rajapaksa infrastructure bond.
The battle against corruption must be impartial, surgical, and brutally boring in its adherence to due process. Spectacle cannot substitute substance. If CIABOC is to emerge as more than a PR stunt, it must prosecute with precision and defend with vigour.
Perhaps the most cutting line in Dissanayake’s address wasn’t aimed at the corrupt officials, but at the public.
“These bribes are being given by the people of this country,” he said. “There are a large number of people against corruption. But the same people bribe public officials like this.”
It’s a painful truth. In Sri Lanka, corruption isn’t just a government problem. It’s a cultural contract. A social lubricant. A “thank you” with teeth. A dance in which both partners have rehearsed the steps to perfection.
If CIABOC is to succeed, the public must be reformed as much as the bureaucracy. Not with lofty posters and moralistic jingles—but with clear, transparent systems, digital processes, and meaningful penalties. If the citizen believes that following the rules will get him nowhere, he will find ways to shortcut the queue.
And that’s the great irony: in Sri Lanka, corruption thrives not in darkness, but in broad daylight, over the counter, under the table, and in the presence of God and CCTV.
So, is CIABOC’s latest performance an act of legal theatre or the first page of a new constitutional chapter?
Only time, court calendars, and the resilience of those Rs. 4.1 million rupee notes will tell.
For now, Dissanayake’s message hangs heavy in the air like the scent of court files and moral panic. “We are watching you,” he warns. “Stop these activities.”
Sri Lanka has heard this before. From presidents, from police chiefs, from commissions and committees whose final reports now make excellent doorstoppers.
But perhaps this time is different.
Perhaps this time, the files won’t disappear. The money won’t change hands. The witnesses won’t forget.
Perhaps, finally, someone has found a broom that works.
Or at the very least, a camera that does.
-By LeN Political Correspondent
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by (2025-05-27 06:39:27)
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